The Nature of a Thief
by Rosa Lui
Summary: When the child was born, he came too early and too small. But where others saw weakness, his mother saw defiance; and she named him Eugenides, for everything she hoped he’d be and everything he’d already shown he was.
1. Childhood

**Disclaimer:** Not mine! :3

**A/N: **Enjoy! And I adore feedback. ^^

* * *

**The Nature of a Thief**

**Part One: Childhood**

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* * *

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_**Narrative by: Unknown**_

**(0)**

The child was born three weeks too early. He was surprisingly healthy despite this, but quite small; the royal doctors said he would likely not survive til morning.

It was because of this that the father did not object when the mother suggested an ill-advised name for the baby; what did it matter what they called him, when he would not live to bear the title for long? Besides, losing a child was harsh on a mother; best to let her have the small joy of naming him.

The mother, though, did not see a son that was too small; she saw a body perfect for acrobatics and sneaking through small spaces. She didn't see a baby born unluckily early; she saw defiance against the preconceived rules of the world. A troublemaker, who would forever be the subject of others' underestimation. Not a calm eye in the center of a hurricane, but one who was the very origin of the storm, and reveled in it.

And so she named him Eugenides, for everything she hoped he'd be and everything he'd already shown he was.

* * *

The first protestations about the boy, his name, and his future occupation started before he'd even had his first birthday. When he was three weeks old, healthy appetite and gusty bawling proving daily that he would not be dying any time soon, a group of lesser ministers paid a discreet visit to Eugenides' father.

The Minister of War stood silent as he heard their complaints; that Eddis was already regarded as a backward country, and clinging to old traditions would not help their reputation. That the practice of royally sanctioned thievery would only solidify them as barbarians in the eyes of Sounis and Attolia, and was the naming of the new child after the God of Thieves truly politic?

The current King's Thief was an old man, one advisor reminded carefully, and his daughter, though tolerated by the court, was only a commoner. She called herself the _Queen_ Thief already; there was fear she would attempt to bring a more literal meaning to that title by placing her new child in a position of power.

The Minister of War listened to all of this, then told them to get out before he had them arrested for treasonous insults to his wife and father-in-law.

**(5)**

When Eugenides was five years old, an intruder found his way onto the palace grounds. The threat had not been serious, but the guards alerted to his presence had been a brutish bunch, and the man was dealt with accordingly.

It was Eugenides who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and saw the guards' swords flash down and sink into flesh with a dull _thunk_. It was he who was at the perfect vantage point to see the panic, the fear, the widening of eyes on the dead man's face. He was also there to see the guards laugh at their victory, as if chopping down a man was the same as chopping through firewood. As if the destruction of a human life meant nothing to them.

It was also he who saw how young the man was, wondered who he had been, if he had family, and how he'd been at the wrong place at such a wrong time.

The guards discovered Eugenides in his hiding place when they heard him throw up on the ground; it was they who, familiar with him because of his father, slapped him on the back, told him to be a man, and explained, very slowly, that this was Patriotic Justice in the form of Protecting Our Country.

The five-year-old boy could only stare at them and think _stupid, stupid, stupid_.

* * *

It took a surprisingly short number of years for the boy's tutors to understand what his parents had already suspected, and the rest of the court had missed entirely. The boy was sharp as a nail, cleverer than a fox, and had a huge capacity for learning. He was also easily bored, which often led to mischief, laziness, and the misconception that he was stupid.

It was his grandfather who eventually sat the boy down and instilled in him one very valuable quality he had previously lacked; patience. Patience to sit through lessons, sit through scoldings, ignore naysayers; patience to sit and look the fool while your plans were carried out beneath everyone's noses. It would be the key to his greatest successes, later in life; now, it made his teachers' lives easier.

It was his father who would first put a toy sword in Eugenides' hand. He would watch the boy best his older, larger brother in practice, and recognize in his son an innate fortitude that could make him into a great soldier one day. That dream would never be fulfilled, but this forceful training would save the boy's life time and again as he got older.

It was his mother who taught him how to fight back against those who thought you a disappointment, or a disgrace; not through physical violence, but with unrepentant wit, a quick biting tongue, and quick snatching fingers.

It was one of Eugenides' brothers that first introduced him to books and spawned a life-long love of reading. It was another of his brothers who first showed him around the army barracks, where he gleefully picked up more inappropriate behaviors with which to disgust the court.

It was Gen who taught himself how to take these things and weave them together. His inexorable mischievousness, hidden brilliance, lazy disrespect and uncouth slothfulness bred exasperation and alienation among his elders and peers alike. And so, he developed a confidence in himself and his own abilities, to make up for where others lacked in it.

**

* * *

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_**Narrative by: Eugenides**_

**(7)**

One of my first memories is of the main temple in Eddis. I remember the holy smoke and flickering lights, as they wavered across the features of painted statues and friezes. Snug in my grandfather's arms, I watched with wide-eyed curiosity as he laid a silver fibula pin on the altar and made his prayers.

Afterwards, he asked me if I understood what he had done. I shook my head.

"The Gods," he began with the air of one who held a great secret, "protect us. They are more powerful than the seas and older than the forests, and we worship them out of reverence, and the hope that they will protect us in return."

I frowned, my young brain trying to convert this into normal-people language. "So you give them stuff because you want them to like you?"

For a reason that completely eluded me, this made my grandfather laugh uproariously. "Not quite, Gen, though I suppose that's good enough for now. We make offerings to show our veneration; it is the same as with our festivals, and our sacrifices."

I was still frowning. I'd been to festivals in Eddis; they had never struck me as particularly pious. "Uncle Gyles says sacrifices are good when there's no war, because it's an excuse to kill something."

"Oh?"

"And Tim says he goes to festivals to get drunk."

"He does," my grandfather said, sounding suspiciously like he was suppressing another laugh. "But then, that's the reason Timos does everything."

"You mean other people really believe giving the Gods dead cow bits will make them like us?" I wouldn't like somebody who gave _me_ dead cow bits.

"Well, perhaps not everyone, no. But our original reasons are not forgotten." My grandfather saw that I was unimpressed with this explanation, and chuckled. "So young and already a budding cynic, I see. I'll tell you what to do; talk to your mother. I've taught her all the old stories of the Gods, and now she knows them better than I."

I nodded, and in an attempt to seem interested for my grandfather's sake, I pointed to one of the paintings and asked, "Who's that?"

My grandfather smiled oddly. "Why that particular one, Gen?"

I shrugged. I'd picked it blindly, at random. The man depicted in it certainly wasn't very extraordinary-looking.

"That is your namesake, Gen. Our patron God. Do you know what that means?"

I shook my head.

"It means that you were named after him. That is Eugenides, the God of Thieves. He is the one we all strive to be worthy of. He keeps us safe and inspires us, and in return, we offer him things – like this fibula pin."

"No cow bits?"

"No cow bits. Just remember; an offering before and after each successful venture, and one each month for extra luck."

At that time, I had no idea what he meant or even what the God of Thieves really represented. But as my grandfather guided my small hands to light a stick of incense, he must have seen my destiny reflected back at me from that mischievous face painted on the wall.


	2. Troublemaker

**Disclaimer:** Not mine! :3

**A/N: **Enjoy! And I adore feedback. ^^

* * *

**The Nature of a Thief**

**Part Two: Troublemaker**

* * *

**_Narrative by: Eugenides_**

**(8)**

I spent the morning of my eighth birthday hiding on a roof.

This was not altogether unusual – my tutors made a habit of showing me things I already knew, and I often decided to leave them to their stupidity, in favor of filching the gold from underneath uncle's pillow again or listening to my mother's stories. I could write just fine. No matter how many times I told my teachers this, they refused to believe me without proof, which I refused to give on principle.

This time, I'd headed off with the vague intention of finding my brother - he'd been seen flaunting a trinket from a female admirer, and I'd been trying to relieve him of it – and found myself, instead, in the middle of the Eddisian army.

This did not particularly trouble me - I'd been to this area before, often to watch my father and brother at drills - but this was my first trip unsupervised. This was where they lived – not the privileged Royal Guard, and not the farmers who would have been pulled from the mountains during wartime, but the dwellings that sprawled out from the main barracks.

Soldiers were odd things. I knew only the palace guards and my own family; the first I found tiresome, and the second I knew to be slightly dim. These were a third, fitting into the vague category of Unwashed.

I liked my brightly-colored clothes; I liked my books; I liked being _clean_.

But these people – walking about below me with their weapons, clothes faded from too much washing or dulled from not enough, eating food with their hands, scratching themselves, chewing with mouths open – were something I had never seen before.

Stretched out flat on the rooftop, I felt less out of place than I would have amongst the giants of men that walked the streets. They swore loudly – something I listened to with great interest – and spoke so roughly I barely understood. They were different, and if I had tried to fit in as one of their own children, it wouldn't have worked.

They _fascinated_ me. They also made me want a bath.

"Oi!"

I looked – when people shouted, they were often shouting at me – and found myself staring down at a cousin, one of the many large, brutish Namelesses I usually worked hard to avoid.

Apparently my rooftop was not as hidden as I'd thought.

"The entire palace," cousin Nameless began, pointing an accusing finger at me, "is turning itself upside-down to find you, you useless little _whelp,_ because you ran off in the middle of a calligraphy lesson –" He continued his tirade, damning me, my calligraphy, and half the Gods for good measure.

Considering Nameless was possibly twice my size, insulting him was likely not politic. I realized this after the fact, as I watched him climb towards me up the only scalable side of the wall, with a look in his eyes that promised retribution.

The building was low and squat; less that twice my height. I took a running start and jumped.

I was good at running. Always have been.

**(9)**

My father's first attempt to force me onto a horse ended disastrously. I panicked, squirmed, and tried to climb off again; my father – mostly by instinct – caught me, and set me in the saddle again.

This time I lasted for nearly a minute, before the horse _twitched_ and I went tumbling over the side. I landed as I had been trained to, but milked the fall for all it was worth. I'd learned years ago that members of the court, especially children, were meant to be seen and not heard. This was one of the many things I often disappointed at, outrage coming more naturally to me.

I began wailing at the top of my lungs.

While my father – aware I was not injured - stared at me in mortified horror, I sprang to my feet and ran up the nearest tree.

Perhaps if I stayed out of reach for long enough, they would forget about me.

I was quite ready to stay there for the rest of my life.

My grandfather made a point of congratulating my father on the obvious success of this first attempt.

"A natural," he nodded, face grave and eyes sparkling wickedly. "A shining example every soldier should aspire to."

My father was staring at me in my place amid the branches, probably wondering who I was and how I had been switched with his real son at birth.

My mind was on a different path entirely. "I have to ride _that_ if I want to be a soldier?" I pointed at the horse with a horrified expression of my own. "What on earth _for_?"

This snapped my father out of his stupor, and he ordered me to come try again. I weighed my options, and climbed higher.

My grandfather watched this in mild concern and asked my father if I had suffered some horse-related trauma when younger.

My father was not amused.

"He _is_ very young, Minister," my grandfather said soberly, "And fairly small. To him it must be like trying to ride a house."

"He's been scampering across rooftops for years already," my father said. "You should know, as you're mostly responsible for it. I've seen him twenty feet off the ground and not batting an eye –"

"Houses," I complained from my perch, "don't _move._"

* * *

It was not long after the Horse Incident that grandfather took me on our first trip together, across the countryside of Eddis and to the border of neighboring Attolia.

We stopped on the bank of the Aracthus, crouched among the brambles and shelter of the surrounding trees. The great river was roaring, swift, enormous - it seemed like an impassible barricade, yet I could see a series of natural bridges spanning its width.

"See those?" My grandfather pointed to them. "One day when your balance is better, I'll teach you to run across."

I was in disbelief at this lack of faith. I spent more time on the palace roof than under it, to the consternation of many. "My balance is fine!"

"Not in a saddle," was his blithe answer.

There was a moment of silence.

"Ledges are easy," I groused finally. "Horses are different."

"How?"

"They don't try to trot out from under you."

"A horse is its own being; you can direct it, but it does not obey as a part of you. It's inconceivable to a thief, who wants control over his body at all times."

I shrugged. I just knew it had freaked me out, more than anything else I could remember.

"What I'm more concerned about," my grandfather continued, suddenly stern, "is that ridiculous shrieking I heard afterwards."

"It was father's fault," I mumbled, "I'm allowed to yell about it."

"A thief never makes noise by accident," grandfather said firmly. "If you're sneaking through a house at night and stub your toe, are you going to start wailing?"

Probably.

"When it really matters, you'd better know how to keep your silence." Then grandfather pinched me on the arm.

I bellowed.

"Now what if there had been Attolian guards nearby? If this was wartime, you could have cost us our lives."

I just rubbed my arm and stared stubbornly at my toes.

* * *

**_Narrative by: Lord Baron Ariston_**

**(9)**

The watch was well-made. It ticked along strong and even, glass facing and metalwork well-crafted. In fact, the watch was exactly what Lord Ariston was looking for; perhaps not a masterwork, but cleanly done. It was probably worth several gold coins.

"One silver," he said promptly, taking the paltry sum out of his pocket and smacking it down impressively.

The boy behind the counter could not have been more than 11 years old, and had welcomed Ariston to the shop with the heavy rustic accent of Eddis's lower classes. It was not unusual; dumb cattle manning shops such as these were easy to trick and easier to bully.

"I wouldn't pay that much for a dead goat," the boy said.

How unprecedented. "The watch is nearly worthless," the lord lied. "I am not prepared to pay any more."

The boy looked at it, brow furrowed. "Then why do you want it?" He raised his arm and pointed towards the door as if in helpful demonstration. "If you don't like it, go somewhere else."

Disrespect from a merchant's son. How fitting. "Your miserable shop exists only to _sell_. I dine with the Ministers. You should be honored to have one like myself take interest in such shoddy work."

The boy told him exactly where he could stick his 'shoddy work,' and to include the Ministers while he was at it.

Lord Baron Ariston purpled. "_I demand you bring me your master_."

"Don't have one."

"_Gutter-scum_ could not have created a piece of work this sophisticated –"

"I thought," the boy said quietly, "it was 'shoddy.'"

There was a short silence. It was interrupted by a light jangling sound, and the door of the shop opened to admit a young man. He took one look at the situation and asked tentatively, "Is there something I can help you with?"

"This boy," the lord said instantly and with savage pleasure, "has been insolent, rude, and most unhelpful in my search for a watch. He is more suitable for a flogging than hawking wares."

There was a silence. He could feel the boy glaring at him.

"I see," the young man said finally. "Excuse us." He marched behind the counter, grabbed the boy by the ear, and proceeded to drag him into the back of the shop. From there, Lord Ariston could hear snippets of a furiously whispered argument.

"- you to stop this, Gen –"

"- insulting your work –"

"- you insult my work all the –"

"- different!"

"- driving off customers _again_ –"

"- he was –"

"- AGAIN!"

"- INSULTING YOUR WORK!!"

Intense scuffling sounds followed, before a loud _bonk_ and a howl of pain.

They emerged a moment later, the boy seeming to drag his feet as slowly and loudly as possible.

"I'm sorry," the young man said firmly. "My younger brother is a known troublemaker. If you'd allow it, he'll to apologize to you now."

The boy shuffled forward, prompted by a sharp nudge. He turned for a moment to glare at his sibling before his face crumpled into a convincing show of agony and he flung his arms around the Baron, wailing his remorse.

"And," the young man continued firmly, hauling his brother away from where he was now clasping at the Baron's hands, "I believe we can offer you that watch at half price. I assure you, my brother will be _most_ severely punished as soon as opportunity allows."

Slightly mollified, the Baron accepted the deal and left the shop feeling vindicated.

* * *

_"….I'm telling mother."_

_I shrugged. "Fine."_

_"You shouldn't have done that."_

_"Do you really think he dines with the Minister?"_

_"Father's never mentioned him, but we can't be sure. Now give it to me."_

_My face took on an expression of polite puzzlement._

_"Poppycock, Eugenides. I know you took something of his, now give it to me."_

_Well, damn. "He has bad taste in jewelry anyway," I complained, slapping the gaudy rings and money pouch into Stenides's palm, followed by – "Just be happy I saved your watch, too."_

* * *

**_Narrative by: Eugenides_**

**(10)**

Thieves die on roofs. It is practically tradition. There is an old myth that says if the King's Thief chooses to dance on the rooftop of the palace, he and his chosen partner will be kept safe by the God Eugenides. Yet the Gods, some say, are vengeful to those who presume too much. Leap too high, and they will let you fall.

Of everything about her, I remember my mother's laughter most. Her laughter, and the sparkle in her eyes.

She was laughing when she slipped and fell, and then all I remember was screaming.

The funeral was a blur. It was drab and serious and everyone wore black and my mother would have hated it.

"It's the way we die," my grandfather said vaguely, when I finally found him amid the press of people. His eyes were glazed, as if he was gone and all that was left was a frail husk of an old man, watching ghosts pass before his eyes. "The way we all die. It's tradition, like kings falling in battle. It's what we do. Eventually. Always."

My father's fist clenched tightly around his goblet, and he did not look at me.

Suddenly Grandfather's eyes raised and he focused on me, startlingly intense. "She wasn't the King's Thief and neither are you. So she fell."

I turned and ran. I was good at running.

Someone shouted my name and I ignored them, slipping into the nearest room with an empty fireplace and making my way into the old hypocaust, not resting until I was curled in the dark and the dust.

I don't know how long I sat there; I may have fallen asleep. People were likely panicking below, more out of fury at my disrespect than out of worry.

I became aware of the scrabbling sounds after a few hours; mice, I thought at first, before realizing the sound was of something far larger. I waited motionless, eyes fixed on the faint and flickering light now visible from the passage below. A few sounds of frustration, more scrabbling, and a small pale hand appeared, holding a candle which it placed on the ledge. After a moment the hand withdrew to be replaced by a head; short-haired, curly, with a crooked nose. Dark eyes found mine and paused, lips pursed.

I looked away first. "Cousin."

With delicate care, the Queen sighed, hoisting herself up out of the passageway and onto the ledge beside me. I expected her to comfort me, or maybe to scold. She did neither, just opened her arms. I crawled into them.

We stayed that way for what could have been minutes or days, each lost in our own thoughts, accompanied by our own ghosts.

When I finally raised my head, I was wiping my face discreetly.

I looked at her. Crowned only months before, young, still mourning the deaths of her father and brothers, she had been stuffed into a resplendent dress fit for a Queen but not for her. Now it was covered in soot, dust, rips and pulls.

"Eugenides –" she stopped, and then seemed to gather her resolve and start again. "The Minister has been frantic." I shrugged. My father could do what he liked. "_No_, Gen," she said. "They were - you were so upset and then you ran, they were… checking the rooftops. The Minister and your grandfather. And the… grounds below."

I stared at her. I could still see it -

_-warm rain in the sunlight, just enough to make the tiles slick - her hair bouncing, laughing joyously as she spun, eyes alight – a teasing glance over her shoulder as she neared the edge and reached for the windowsill below, just like she'd done so many times before –_

"Gramps thinks it was because she wasn't the real Thief," I said. "He thinks the Gods are angry, and that's why she fell."

The hand stroking my head stilled.

"I think he's wrong. I think the Gods don't exist."

_-and I was left blank, staring at the empty space where she had just been standing as I heard the cries of startled and horrified guards down below-_

"She should have been Eugenides's. She'd honored him. He should have caught her." Because if the Gods had ever found anyone worthy of salvation, surely they would have saved my mother.

* * *

The court had loved my mother despite themselves. Some disapproved of or even hated what she symbolized, but not a one failed to fall under the spell of her wit and charm. They had tolerated me for her sake, looking down their noses at me only when they thought she couldn't see them.

Now, it was as if her death had freed them all from her spell, and people started to remember just how far below his station my father had married. It was as if I was the last remnant of a dirty little secret, small and impolite and refusing to do anything productive.

_The Queen Thief,_ I could see them scoffing. _See where that got her._

I'd made decisions that night, about what I was going to do with the rest of my life. And as my father marched into my room the next morning, hollow-eyed and angry, it seemed that he had done the same.

"This is the end," he glared at me, something in his eyes I had never seen before. I was usually impervious to disapproval, but this was different. "You will begin reporting to the training grounds every morning with your brother."

I stared at him. I'd trained before – I'd been told I was good at it, I liked being good at things – but it had never been regular. Father already had a soldier son. He'd never cared terribly about making me into another one.

"I'm going to be," I said clearly, not moving fom my spot in the window seat, "the next Thief."

My father stared at me.

"Everyone already expects it," I clarified. "I'm going to be _famous_. I'm going to make the _title_ famous again. People will _respect_ it." No one would ever talk about it as a disgrace, not ever again.

"I will not have you _following you mother over the edge of a roof."_

I jumped. My father never yelled. He barely _talked_. "Mother was a Thief –"

"You will not speak of that."

"- Everyone _loved_ her, and now they want to _forget_, as if it killed her –" My father was coming toward me furiously, and I leapt to my feet. "- and I _hate you!_" In one motion I turned and swung out of the window, scrambling for a hold on the decorative tiling and clambering down to the balcony two floors below.

A shout of panic made me freeze, and I looked up to see my father staring down at me, eyes wide and panic-stricken. For a moment – just a moment – I felt the stirrings of guilt. Then I set my jaw and clambered over the rail, scampering to the ground.

It was not our last conversation along these lines. Each in our overwhelming grief, he was uncompromising and I was hateful.

We both said too many things we didn't mean.

Every day, I was wrestled out onto the training grounds and made to stand in formation with the other boys, swinging a wooden sword in endless repetition of steps and drills. And every day, I spat and cursed and struggled all the way.

My mother would have hated seeing us argue, but she was gone, gone, gone.


End file.
